ORLANDO, Fla. -- Genband Perspectives -- Genband brought together 700 clients, customers, media members, and analysts in sometimes-sunny Orlando to convince them it is the de facto name in real-time communications.

Excitement for communications, specifically WebRTC, was palpable at the show through demos, customer testimonials, and the giddiness in the voices of all its C-level execs.

With a little less gusto, Genband Inc. set out to show it's ready for SDN and NFV just as soon as its customers are ready to deploy them. The virtualization technologies are clearly important to the networking vendor, but Genband's roadmap feels a bit hazy. Outside of "everything will be NFV," the company had little in the way of specifics to share.

That said, the conference covered a lot of ground, and so did our camera. Click the image below to launch a short slideshow of the sites from the show this week (in near real-time).

The 'gleaming city on a hill,' Steve Saunders calls it. But who is going to take us from today's NFV componentry to the grand future of a self-driving network? Here's a look at the vendors hoping to make it happen.

Understanding the full experience of women in technology requires starting at the collegiate level (or sooner) and studying the technologies women are involved with, company cultures they're part of and personal experiences of individuals.

During this WiC radio show, we will talk with Nicole Engelbert, the director of Research & Analysis for Ovum Technology and a 23-year telecom industry veteran, about her experiences and perspectives on women in tech. Engelbert covers infrastructure, applications and industries for Ovum, but she is also involved in the research firm's higher education team and has helped colleges and universities globally leverage technology as a strategy for improving recruitment, retention and graduation performance.

She will share her unique insight into the collegiate level, where women pursuing engineering and STEM-related degrees is dwindling. Engelbert will also reveal new, original Ovum research on the topics of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, security and augmented reality, as well as discuss what each of those technologies might mean for women in our field. As always, we'll also leave plenty of time to answer all your questions live on the air and chat board.